No, they don't need help to spy on you and your fellow Americans
without suspicion of wrongdoing -- Congress already gave them that
power by extending the Patriot
Act
and legalizing the National Security Agency's warrantless
wiretapping program. Even with ample evidence that they've
routinely
violated these over-broad surveillance authorities, such as the FBI's
abuse of National
Security Letters and so-called "exigent"
letters or the
National Security Agency's "over-collection"
of Americans'
communications, the intelligence agencies unabashedly demand
more spying powers.
Not surprisingly,
much of this spying targets political activity. The ACLU's new "Spyfiles"
website documents
surveillance or obstruction of First Amendment-protected activity in 33
states and the District of Columbia since 2001.

And they certainly don't need more
resources -- as the Washington Post's series on "Top
Secret America" makes clear, they've built a
surveillance-industrial complex so large that even those running it
don't know its scope. The intelligence budget is reportedly
$75 billion per year,
with a significant percentage of that spent on 1,931 private contractors,
yet there is no
evidence to show we are safer as a result. Indeed, the excessive
secrecy in which the intelligence community operates virtually
guarantees that waste,
fraud,
abuse
and mismanagement
will regularly occur.
Our nation's founders certainly wouldn't be surprised that a system
that uses secrecy to actively subvert constitutional checks
and balances
would go awry.

What the men and women of the
intelligence community need is legal protection when they blow the
whistle on this kind of government waste, fraud and abuse. You see,
when Congress gave federal employees whistleblower protection with the
landmark Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, it exempted
the FBI, CIA, NSA and
other intelligence agencies from protection. Keep in mind these are the
people the government trusts with our most critical national security
missions and secrets, yet they have the least protection when they
report government incompetence and wrongdoing within these agencies.

The national security loophole for
whistleblower protection is incredibly dangerous because our law
enforcement and intelligence agencies carry a heavy responsibility and
wield extraordinary power over ordinary Americans with very little
public oversight or accountability. Errors and abuse within these
agencies magnify the risks -- both for our security and our civil
liberties -- and studies show that insiders are often in the best
position to identify problems early. But it is becoming clear that
insiders aren't reporting, at least in part out of fear of retaliation.
A 2009 Department of Justice Inspector General survey
(pdf) found that 42
percent of FBI agents don't report all of the misconduct they see on
the job, and 18 percent never report any.

Congress needs access
to information
about mismanagement and misconduct within the intelligence community,
both classified and unclassified, in order to perform its
constitutional duty to check abuses of power and ensure our security is
being adequately protected. But Congress cannot perform effective
oversight unless informed federal employees and contractors are willing
to tell the truth about what is happening within these agencies. And we
can't expect them to come forward if it will cost them their jobs or
result in prosecution.

You can help the conscientious men and
women of the intelligence community get the protection they need so
they can protect us better. Tell your members of Congress to stop
bickering over whether
and when
intelligence
bureaucrats mislead them in official briefings -- it has long
been clear they do
-- and instead
empower the agents within the intelligence community to tell
the truth about waste, fraud and misconduct by protecting
them
from
retaliation. Whistleblower bills in the House and the Senate have
stalled, largely but not entirely over the extent of protections that
will be provided to intelligence community employees. Tell your members
of Congress our national security can't wait; they need to pass strong
whistleblower protections for the workforce that is charged with
protecting us all.